I recently had a conversation with a new player whose only reason for not subscribing essentially boiled down to wanting an easier time with character creation. He liked the idea of cross-set builds, but didnt have the time to spend building characters. Through our conversation a frequently expressed worry was that he might ruin his character.

My thought was that since AT’s are an easy introduction for Silver players, why dont we, as the community, put together some effective, “guaranteed to not suck,” builds for new Golds (or even veterans who just want quick and easy access to a set theyve not played before).

So post your favorite builds here.

Edit: I’m not sure that we need to focus on the most absolutely optimal choices here. This is about good, functional builds, not arguments over which choice is ideal at which level.

Dexterity’s bonuses have heavy diminishing returns, so focus on just keeping it at the soft-cap for each level range, which is around +32% damage (200 total at level 40). Keep Intelligence at a level in which it will reach that same cap with Aucacity triple-stacked (~150 at level 40), and try to keep your Ego roughly equal to your Intelligence. Focus on putting the rest in Constitution, but Recovery can also be useful for alpha strikes as well as stronger energy building, and Presence can be useful for stronger Bountiful Chi Resurgence heals as well as lower threat in PvE teams. Endurance will always be outpaced by Intelligence for you.
Due to the reliance on Dodge this build has, it is extremely valuable to have a +Dodge/Avoidance upgrade item equipped.

The advantages Crippling Challenge and Nailed to the Ground are only necessary if you intend to PvP, but in that case they truly are necessary.

Use Two Gun Mojo to build Enrage, which will improve both Bullet Beatdown and Lead Tempest. This is typically unnecessary against weaker enemies, which you will just tear through, but can be a real help against bosses or other players.
Bullet Beatdown and Lead Tempest should each be used to tear apart groups while simultaneously defending yourself (because of Parry’s Elusive Monk and Lead Tempest’s Tread Softly). Bullet Beatdown is better used on tight groups if you have Enrage up, otherwise use Lead Tempest which has a fairly incredible max range. Also use Bullet Beatdown against melee targets for heavy damage + defense.
Not Without Incident is actually a superior damage boost for Bullet Beatdown than an extra rank under any circumstance, due to the fact that the AoE effect counts as an entirely separate attack and also hits the primary target. Even against a single target without Enrage it will be better.

Lock N’ Load can be very good mixed with Lead Tempest to quickly wipe out a massive group of enemies, though Lock N’ Load also helps greatly to take down tougher individual enemies.
The Two Smoking Barrels advantage only takes effect on each attack activation rather than each actual hit of the attack, meaning that a full Bullet Beatdown combo will only reduce the cooldown 4 times, rather than the 7 or so it would otherwise be, for a total of 8 seconds. It is still a very solid choice, and invaluable to allow Lock N’ Load to be up more often against tougher enemies.

Inexorable Tides can be used to keep people off of you and disabled in melee, even tight groups of enemies, and can be a good lead-in for Bullet Beatdown. It can also be used to interrupt charged powers.

Holdout Shot is a great finisher for a Bullet Beatdown combo, since it will often leave you drained enough of energy for the extra damage and lower cost to trigger. Holdout Shot is capable of some amazing and dirt-cheap damage, so try to set it up often by blowing through energy.

Breakaway Shot can be used while Rooted to get some distance from enemies, or to escape quickly if an enemy is charging a Point-blank Area Attack (marked by the red circle over their head).
Breakaway Shot can also be a good lead-in for fights, since it does a fair amount of AoE damage and applies a nice damage reduction effect. If you start by leaping into the center of a group and activating it mid-air, you’ll fly higher up rather than further away, since your targets will be beneath you.
Breakaway Shot has a high cost, and can also be effectively followed up with Holdout Shot, especially since Holdout Shot can be activated before you even hit the ground after flipping away, and looks awesome. This is especially effective if you used Breakaway Shot to open a fight, since you’ll almost always be left with low enough energy to trigger Holdout Shot’s extra damage.

Between Killer Instinct and Form of the Master, you’ll gain a large amount of energy whenever you critical or dodge, both of which will be happening very frequently, so energy is not a large issue.
Form of the Master will also massively improve the damage of Bullet Beatdown and Inexorable Tides when you have Focus built up.

Bountiful Chi Resurgence, due to high Intelligence, can be double-stacked a little over one-third of the time by activating it whenever it’s off cooldown in a fight. Double-stacking it is a massive benefit; not only will it trigger twice every second rather than once, but I believe it will trigger twice on every dodge as well.
Storm’s Eye Prana may seem like a good advantage for Form of the Master to let you stack BCR even easier, but the way it works makes it only capable of at most ever cutting the cooldown in half. Super Intelligence will already allow you to maintain two stacks pretty often, and the nature of Storm’s Eye Prana makes it less effective the lower the base recharge on BCR is. 3 Advantage points just isn’t worth a potential reduction of perhaps 4 seconds, 6 at most.
Between Bountiful Chi Resurgence with Resurgent Reiki and Form of the Master, Masterful Dodge will give you 15 seconds of God Mode out of every minute, with nearly limitless health and energy, and almost immediately giving you a full 8-stack of Focus for massive melee damage.
Extra ranks in Masterful Dodge are complete overkill, and unnecessary.

An easy build for soloing and holds its own in instanced play. Very durable, and quick to kill with very little time spent building energy. On my character, the fire FX are colored the same as the toxic ones, so fire flight, immolation and Pyre’s fire patch look just like toxic miasma emitting fumes.

Edit: To get Venomous Breath with the Level 1 power pick, you need to remove the starter attack when you get to the PowerHouse for the first time. If you play through the tutorial, you will have the resources to do so. If you skip the tutorial, you will have to get resources by: doing the explore Ren Center and crafting missions; and/or killing a few mobs in the park near Ren Center.

This build is made to retcon into at level 40, and works very well if you plan on being the main tank to endgame lairs.

This build works amazingly well in solo situations, as well as when Tanking bosses in Lairs. However, it’s weakness is in AoE aggro control, as that is more a weakness of Might than anything. For better AoE aggro management, Pyre makes for a good last power to fill in that gap. However, you still don’t have Pre in the build so, it will be difficult regardless. Another option for your last power could be Howl, allowing you to keep your Enrage going permanently, even outside of combat – plus the fear decreases enemy damage, helping you survive even more.

When soloing, your job will be very easy. Against a Single Enemy, just use Uppercut to build stacks of Aggression, and use Enrage as necessary to stack Enrage. Your Single Target damage will kill most enemies in seconds. Against multiple enemies, Mighty Leap into the group, and use Roomsweeper or Havok Stomp to build some stacks of Enrage. Activate your Enrage power and Mighty Leap to any survivors, using your single-target combo to end them quickly, Mightly Leaping to each enemy in turn.

Hold aggro in Lairs will be a different story entirely. Your damage output will drop as you focus more on keeping enemies off your allies. In this case, you Shockwave to get enemies attention and draw them to you. Keep repositioning yourself so that you’re hitting as many enemies as possible with Shockwave, and only occasionally use Roomsweeper or Havok Stomp as quick finishers – do not fully charge them unless you’re sure they’ll kill the enemies, as having your enemies spread all over the place will make your job of holding aggro difficult, but will also make DPSers job of killing things quickly more difficult.

To hold aggro against a boss, you’re going to have to play around a bit to keep yourself alive and to keep all the correct buffs on you. First off, block often. Blocking with Ebon Void increases your damage resistance ,which will stack on top of your Defiance and your Inertial Dampening Field. Between Blocks, tap your Shockwave to gain the threat over time from it’s Challenging Strikes, and spam Defensive Combo as much as possible to pile on the threat. Just make sure to turtle up and block at least 1 hit every 10 seconds to keep your Voracious Darkness at max stacks, and use Enrage whenever possible to add a bit of damage (along with threat) t your attacks.

For keeping alive, you should be using Conviction liberally, keeping yourself topped off with it. When low, just use Resurgence, and don’t ever be afraid to turtle up behind your block. Voracious Darkness does have a chance heal you a bit every time you block damage, so between the mitigation that Defiance, Voracious Darkness and Inertial Dampening Field are giving you and the healing from Conviction and Voracious Darkness, death will be rare to come by.

This build is a level 40 retcon build. It can be used to solo, but many powers will need to be moved around, most notably Resurgence.

There’s alot to this build, but it’s all pretty simple once you gt the hang of it. You’ll want to use your End Builder and Bite to apply bleeds to your enemies, then use Massacre to tear them apart. Massacre does ALOT of extra damage against bleeding enemies, and with continuous damage the Bleeds deal, the damage can quickly get out of hand.

Aspect of the Bestial, Howl, Enrage and Dragon’s Bite will all help to improve your Sustained Damage. Aspect of the Bestial will keep itself going as long as you have it toggled. It will give you a stack of extra slashing damage every time you put a bleed on an enemy – something that your End Builer and Bite will have no problems doing. Make sure you’re using Enrage and Howl whenever they are available to add even more to your damage, and the damage of your bleeds, and use Dragon’s Bite against big enemies and bosses, to keep your bleeds going indefinitely.

Retaliation and Imbue are both added to the build so you can perform better Spike Damage. Make sure that when you want to use Massacre, to block an attack first to gain Retaliation’s buff. This should get you well on your way to 4-5k Massacre-spams, and make sure to Imbue and Retaliate a Massacre every time you can once you’ve got all 5 stacks of Aspect of the Bestial and 8 Stacks of Enrage. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the DPS you’re able to put out, even without the use of an Offensive Passive.

Play in sentinel for maximun carnage and unlimited energy
Select your 2nd superstat according to your playstyle and if you don’t SS presence keep it around 100 for good heal power and let seraphim do the rest.

This build draws primarily form Telekinesis and requires a quick RetCon once you first hit the powerhouse to swap Ego Weaponry for Ego Blade Frenzy. It’s a bit interactive at later levels going between Evasive Maneuvers, Bountiful Chi Resurgence and Thunderbolt Lunge bu